This invention relates to a cylinder head gasket made of metal and intended for use in internal combustion engines. The cylinder head gasket is composed of two opposite sheet metal cover plates each having at least one bead surrounding a combustion chamber opening in the gasket and a spacer plate disposed between the cover plates. The beads are orthogonally aligned, that is, arranged in alignment with a vertical plane (related to the normal positioning of the gasket in use). The protuberant (convex) side of the bead engages the spacer plate and between the cover plates a crimped zone extends which functions as pressure limiter for the beads.
A cylinder head gasket of the above-outlined type is disclosed, for example, in European Patent No. 0 306 766. Between the two cover plates a spacer plate extends which is folded or crimped along the combustion chamber openings. By virtue of such a thickness increase, a high pressure at the combustion chamber is made possible without running the risk that the beads will be flattened by the pressure.
Dependent on the construction of the cylinder head gasket, the required installation thickness--which may be adjusted by means of the spacer plate--can be relatively large. In such a case, however, the problem is encountered that the folded terminal zone of the spacer plate results in an excessively high axial height of the cylinder head gasket.
To avoid the above-noted problem, it has been known to use separate annular inserts. Such a solution is disclosed in German Offenlegungsschrift 42 19 709, according to which the annular inserts are crimped along their edge zone and lie with their terminal region on the spacer plate. Based on the thickness of the spacer plate, the annular inserts have only a relatively small material thickness. Such annular inserts are of such a reduced thickness that they may be considered as foils. The handling of such foils, however, involves significant problems in the automatic manufacture.